Nightstand and Other Important Updates

Our nightstand issues have been an ongoing saga on the blog. They first debuted in this post, where I detailed how I effectively demolished mine in my new-baby-sleep-deprived state. We referenced them again here, when I lamented how Eloise loves to “reorganize” my nightstand and spread our valuables all over the house. Which valuables you ask? Why these, of course; Brakes’ Best Bargain of the Year! We all know that those valuables are VERY important!

Understanding the value of our valuables, and tired of finding them hidden in often-embarrassing places, Brakes gave me the okay to go ahead and purchase some new nightstands.

After a quick debate about budget, I sped to the only store that could possibly meet my style objectives and Brakes’ financial parameters; Good Ole Salvation Army. My budget of $25 may have seemed a little ambitious even for SA, but I happened to go on 50% off furniture day so in no time at all I scooped up some savagely gently used, solid wood kindling antiques. Brakes’ was a very cool end table with rounded edges and deco accents. For me, I chose a vintage sewing table with wobbly legs, but oodles of charm. I was confident that with a little love these beauties would shine (and keep Eloise out of our crap)!

And they did!

I love the storage solutions they provide and how well they complement the other parts of our room. Plus, with the addition of some handy-dandy baby locks, they keep our valuables protected and out of sight…

Too out of sight as it turns out…

Shortly after we finished the nightstands, Brakes and I embarked on another DIY project. We call this one Take Two! II will hopefully debut at the end of April!

HMS Turd

Last week I received a plea from my favorite Uncle Boo Boo to please start up B&G again.  I pompously informed him (via my mom) that I lacked inspiration these days: “Nothing super funny or shocking happens to me anymore”, I claimed.  “I have a toddler,” I lamented.  I even used the old standby:  “I’m tired.”  I had a plethora of excuses.  Three short days later Karma gave me a gigantic bitch slap and what do you know? Lady Inspiration sang her siren song.

Let me back track- in the six months since my last post (ouch!) quite a few things have happened to the B&G household; fantastic but time consuming things.  Progress has been made on the money-pit dream home.  I finally acquired/fashioned some decent nightstands.  And our sweet Weezy has morphed into a chatty, darling, peeing-in-the-potty (and on the bathroom floor, but whatev), toddler before our very eyes!  In all honesty, Brakes and I have had a blast watching our little monster blossom into an actual person and we’ve really soaked in every minute of surprise and development along the way.  We’ve relished this time and lately, we’ve been feeling like we’ve hit our stride with this whole parenting thing. 

Until it rained.  This past weekend we learned it is much easier being exemplary parents when it is warm out and a park is just down the street.  When things start to get hairy, we toss Weez into her Cozy Coupe and roll down the hill to the sweet mercy of swings, slides, and other parents (who are hopefully willing to share a bottle of wine or at least not judge us as we swig from ours).  Our first rainy weekend with our newly (over)active girl there was still wine (lots of it) but it was more of the tantrum variety: “Oooooouuuttt!  Want waaaaallllk!  NOW!” (complete with a foot-stomp) and “NO!  NO! Nonononononononooooooo!”  Although I did catch Brakes gulping a suspicious purple liquid in the kitchen between frantic installments of “Rainy Day Activities” gleaned from my packed up preschool materials in the basement. 

By Sunday late afternoon I had resorted to locking Weezy in her highchair with finger-paints and a Skype window open with terse directions to Uncle Patrick and Aunt Jessica in Arizona to give a holler if they saw Eloise start ingesting (too much) paint or painting the dog (again).  This worked long enough for me to have a tinkle and cram a Fun Size Snickers down my throat.  Getting drunk did not seem responsible (ehhm, Brakes!) but who would begrudge me a Halloween Candy Coma?  We all cope in different ways.  Don’t judge. 

When Patrick and Jessica suddenly “lost their internet connection,” I knew Weezy and I had reached an impasse.  I was going to have to get real creative, real quick or we would both be careening towards a meltdown of epic proportions.    Just briefly I allowed myself to fondly remember simpler days when rainy Sundays were spent lounging in a warm bath with a good book.  Just then my (weepy) eyes alighted on my paint covered daughter and inspiration struck!

Soon we were ensconced in bubbles with rubber duckies for her and a side of chick-lit for me.  Things were going so well, I generously urged Brakes to plug into one of his fave podcasts and have a little alone time.  Weezy splashed and played and I, between pages, soaked my cuticles and marveled at Eloise’s constant stream of dialogue: “I got ducky.  Quack! Quack!  Ducky?  Doggie!  Woof,  woof, woof!  Ducky. Doggy.  Woof!  I go poo poo.  Woof!”  I thought: “Adorable!  What a sweetie.  She loves duckies and doggies and wait!  What was that?!  Poop!”  Shit. Just then I got a whiff.  I shut my eyes and said a quick prayer that the unimaginable hadn’t happened but then I had to open my eyes and face the music, or rather the turd.  Two turds to be exact.  About 3.5 inches long and of a respectable girth.   How my darling daughter somehow managed to squeeze these little shitps out without me noticing, I do not know.  She has turned into a stealthy little shitter.  

I scooped my little poopy-pants up and shouted, yelled, screamed, and howled until Brakes heard me through his ear phones and came running.  After he was done laughing and advising me to just bare-fist the offending turds, he grabbed our stinky daughter and brought me a plastic bag to scoop out the two stowaways that had ruined my nice, relaxing, rainy-day bath.  When the toilet flushed, I had one of those out-of-body experiences.  A mocking, eerie voice  (or maybe it was Brakes?) whispered:   “Gas ****** ******, this is yoooour life!”

By the time I was done scalding and scrubbing my entire body, Brakes had our sweet girl dressed in my favorite jungle animal fleece footie-pajamas and her sweet-smelling hair was combed to the side like a little banker.  She greeted me with a smile and kiss, “Hi Momeee!” she squealed.  With a giggle and another kiss, I heard that eerie voice again,  but this time it did not sound so mocking.  It was more of a gentle reminder to count my blessings.   Even on a rainy, noisy, poop-in-the-bath-tub kind of day, I am still the luckiest “Momeee” in the entire world.   

After we finally put Eloise to bed, I told Brakes, “I think I am going to start blogging again.” 

He replied, “It was the poop that did it, wasn’t it?”  I laughed.  He was right.  Who knew turds could be so inspiring?

Not up to Code!

A couple of months ago your humble blogger was out back clipping blackberry bushes from our lower deck when one of the boards gave out and I fell to my demise 4 feet below. It was only four feet, but it could have been a lot further. So I had to ask myself how many people are going to have to fall through this deck before somebody does something about it? Four? Six? I don’t know really. You tell me. We’ll actually we only know about six people, so six is the max. Will our homeowners insurance cover this many people? I don’t know. I do know that minimum code requires that the casual stroller should not fall through the structure. It looked like a lot of work to fix though, so we covered the hole with a disposable table cloth and left it alone to heal on it’s own.

Note from Gas: Brakes thinks he's Holmes on Homes. (and he does look pretty cute in his overalls)

Fast forward 3 weeks. Gas casually recommends that we work on having a fun outdoor area for when the weather gets better. Cue: The deck. So I hired a guy to get some estimates on redwood lumber (me), consulted an exterior designer (Gas), called in a deck guy (my dad), hired a painter (me), and hired a team of carpenters (us, and we use that term very loosely BTW) and started work. Don’t worry we’re going to Make it Right! Keep smiling.

Now the truth is that guys really don’t know how anything works. But we can always pop open the hood and take a look. Unfortunately sometimes once we get going tinkering with something there is no undo button. Hence this mess:

In addition to the rotted boards near the end of the deck, the joists closest to the patio were very beat up. Particularly the one on the middle was almost completely gone from dry rot:

So after a couple of hours of making a mess and a discussion with our architect (my dad), we decided it would be best to just pull up all the decking boards are replace with new.

Gas thought a white banister with redwood decking would look good since the yard is naturally pretty dark. For the paint we used a paint gun with acrylic white paint. Oh, and BTW we have a ton of firewood if anybody wants some.

This is where it got really messy. We cut back the joists beyond the dry rot and replaced some of them with treated lumber then covered the structure with wood protectant. The little carpenter on the left also helped us with odds and ends.

After getting the framing done it was easy-peasy except for a little bad weather.

The rain coming early was a bummer and we had to stop work about 1/2 way through fastening the deck boards.

Here’s a picture of the finished product (wet):

We also got a yard adornment. It’s like a mix between a garden gnome and a Chia Pet, and it does some cool stuff!

Brakes’ Riddle

After painting knobs all day (sounds diry- its not.) on Valentines day, as you can imagine, I was a wee bit irritated. I may have pouted, whined, and sulked communicated my disappointment in a completely mature and appropriate way. Like most of my lectures helpful suggestions, I assumed that Brakes would blatantly ignore most likely forget my message. So you can imagine my total surprise when I woke up the following day to this: (after he had been up for hours with the baby, letting me sleep in! I know! How could I ever complain about this man?! Just wait- it gets better!)

(I really should stop showing off my messy night stand!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I looked across the room and saw this:

In this kitchen I spied these:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dining room bore this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The living room was not left out:

Neither was Weezy’s room, both bathrooms, the garage, even the mother-in-law catacombs where the dogs sleep! Every where I went there were sweet yellow flowers clipped from our front yard (pretty sure they’re weeds but I love them just the same!) and every time I spotted a new vase Brakes and I would make out and Weezy would give me tender little kisses! It was loving, romantic, meaningful, and it made me feel adored and appreciated! A+ Brakes! I am so glad you are my little over-achiever and I apologize for underestimating your listening skills!

My Sister

Today my gorgeous big sister, Meghann, turns 30.  She’s fit a lot of joy, love, experience, and accomplishment in her time on earth  thus far (and she only had my help for the last 28 years!)  I cannot wait to see what she does in the next 30! 

Love you, Bun!

Goodbye Old Friend

I’ve heard that writing can be a great way to express one’s feelings, so I thought it would be nice to share the history of a family member that Gas and I've really cherished over the last 7 years. Despite having lost a multitude of them over the years, I’ve determined that regardless of what people may tell you it’s always a traumatic experience.

The year was 2003. Gas and I had met only two years earlier and she had been wanting one for a long time. Her previous Jinksy was inherited by her brother. Needless to say, that didn’t work out so well for Jinksy. Having felt some grief over this himself, Gas’ dad started working behind the scenes to get his paws on a new one. Fortunately he had a client who was looking to pass their little darling on to one very special owner who could give her the care she needed. So after a short negotiation she was ours:

A 1991 Pontiac Grand Am LS.

Gas was thrilled. They went everywhere together. To the store, to my house, and even to Petco (to look at the puppies of course). She made the move from Arizona, to Utah, and even to California. She did misbehave on our drive back to Arizona, but you know what they say: You don’t always get the car you want, sometimes you get the car you need. For what other reason would we have spent 2 unscheduled days in Kanab (est. pop 5400) Utah? However, after a little adjustment she became our loyal friend again. Shipping her from Utah to California did make us all a bit nervous though.

A couple weeks ago on one fateful afternoon she was struck with a common illness for her breed and could not pass a smog test. We were faced with a decision. Do we keep spending money trying to keep her alive in what might be a helpless battle? Or do we “retire” her before things get worse?

The DMV conversation went about as expected:

Your humble blogger: “Is there anything that can be done?”

DMV representative: “No. (long silence with a grip of typing going on in the background) And by the way can I put you on hold just for shits and giggles. ”

Your humble blogger’s internal monologue: “It wasn’t like she had attacked anyone! When you are walking down the street who do you fear more: A 1991 Grand Am or a Prius? Those things can kill people! A 1991 Grand Am couldn’t kill a person if it tried. I mean really it couldn’t. And even if it did you’d have plenty of time to get out of the way.”'

DMV representative returns.

Your humble blogger: “This whole experience has made me feel very isolated and alone as though no one cares.”

Not one to put up a fight though we excepted our condition and headed over to the yard to said our goodbyes. We did become a bit worried after spying the sign:

“Pick-n-Pull”! "Cash for Clunkers" (how crass)?! Can we please show some respect. And the way they just pile them up there by the thousand:

After some time we discovered it really is for the best though. And her legacy will live on since we used our bounty to make some much needed improvements outside to our deck (more on that later):

 

Goodbye old friend.

1991 Pontiac Grand Am (1991-2010)

Weezy Wednesday: Places to go…

She is a very busy lady these days!